Chapter 14
JAKOB
I’m going to fucking murder Louis.
Here I am, in the dark, staring at my bedroom ceiling, and my mind is racing through how I’d do it frame by frame.
His front door. My fist through his jaw.
The crack of cartilage when his nose breaks.
The sound he’d make, that weak, gurgling whimper men make when they realize they’ve picked a fight with the wrong Alpha.
My pulse hammers against my throat while my fists are locked at my sides, bunched in the sheets, and fury is bubbling in my chest.
Two a.m. Sleep isn’t happening. I’m wired, torn between the rage and my growing obsession over Claire.
The taste of her in that storage room, her moans, her greedily kissing us back.
Fuck, my cock aches. The beast is thick, heavy, pressed against my shorts, and every time I close my eyes, I picture her mouth on my dick.
This Omega is going to break me.
I shove out of bed in my shorts and bare feet.
The house is silent, and I head straight for the kitchen without stopping.
The other two are snoring away. I need a minute to get my head straight before I do something I’ll regret, like heading to Louis’s house and teaching him what happens when you put your hands on a woman who isn’t yours anymore.
Fridge open. Juice. I crack the cap and drink standing in the dark, the cold cutting through the heat in my chest, and that’s when I hear a clang from outside through my open window. Metal on metal.
I cross over to the window and part the blinds.
Claire’s place, and the lights are blazing. There she is, visible through her half-open curtains, rushing across the kitchen with a baking tray in both hands. Apron covered in flour and hair in a ponytail.
She’s baking, and I’d bet everything I own it’s because of that piece of shit Louis and what he posted online.
I lean against the counter and drink and watch.
She grabs a bowl. Starts mixing—fast, aggressive strokes—flour puffing into the air.
She spins to reach a shelf, and the movement gives me a full view from behind.
I nearly choke on the juice. Those leggings.
Black, tight, painted onto her legs, hugging every curve of her thighs, and her ass is round and firm.
I’m gripping the juice bottle so hard the plastic crackles.
Fuck.
She moves again. Pulls something out from the oven, sets it down, wipes her forehead with her wrist. Then she tastes something from a spoon, tilts her head, and decides. Back to mixing, lost in it, and the concentration on her face is intense.
She’s fucking adorable.
I finish the bottle, then toss it in the recycling and take one more look. She’s pulling another tray from the oven, golden, steaming, and her face lights up with that specific satisfaction of a baker who nailed it.
Fuck it.
I march into my room, drop the shorts, and drag on jeans and a crumpled T-shirt from the chair. Shoes. Out the front door, easing it shut so nothing clicks.
The street’s dead, the moon’s high, and I’m crossing to her front door in haste, where I ring the bell.
Footsteps inside. A pause. “Who is it?”
“Jakob.”
The door opens, and she’s standing there in her flour-dusted apron, cheeks flushed from the oven, glasses slightly fogged. She’s holding a wooden spoon she’s clearly forgotten about.
“Oh. Hey.” She glances past me into the dark. “Is everything okay?”
I can’t stop staring. The ponytail coming loose, blonde strands falling around her face.
The flour on her cheekbone. Her lashes, long and dark behind the glasses.
Her mouth, bare, no lipstick, the lower lip slightly swollen from where she’s been biting it while she concentrates.
The neck of her T-shirt slipping sideways, exposing her collarbone, and I think about putting my mouth there so badly that I ache all over.
“Thing is,” I say, leaning my shoulder against her doorframe, “I was over there in the kitchen. Couldn’t sleep. Then I saw you through the window going at it with the baking and figured… whatever you’re making would go nicely with my company. And maybe some coffee.”
She offers me a lazy, lopsided, gorgeous grin, her whole posture softening, and there’s a flirtiness in her eyes I notice instantly.
“Sounds like you want to try my spinach twists.”
“Never had them. But yeah, I’m in.”
She holds my gaze. Her tongue touches her lower lip and retreats. “I love the way you say that,” she tells me. “ ‘Yeah.’ It sounds cuter with your accent.”
“Can’t shake it. Most of my life here and the vowels still come out Kiwi.”
She laughs. “Come in.”
The smell finds me the second I step through the door. Butter, cheese, baking pastry, and underneath it, her scent. Blueberries and lavender. Faint, threaded through the flour and the heat, and my whole system locks onto it and doesn’t let go.
I follow her through the hallway. Her house is small, crammed with bookshelves everywhere, a reading lamp with a cracked base, a kitchen counter buried under flour and bowls and trays of golden spiraled pastry twists with spinach woven through them.
She’s been at this for hours. There must be six trays. Maybe seven.
“So what’s keeping you up?” she asks, weaving through the chaos toward the coffee machine.
“Things I can’t shake that are driving me mental.”
“Want to elaborate?”
“Nah. Being here’s already helping.”
She laughs over her shoulder. “So are you planning to crash on my couch, then? Want me to get blankets?”
“If you’re inviting me…”
She blushes. The color rises up her neck and floods her cheeks, but she turns away fast, suddenly very focused on the coffee.
She’s definitely going to destroy me. To distract myself, I grab a spinach twist from the nearest tray and take a bite. The pastry shatters. Buttery, flaky, the spinach rich and savory with melted cheese running through it, and a groan rolls out of me.
She spins around. “Verdict?”
“Holy fuck, Claire. These are incredible.”
The smile that breaks across her face slices me open. Pure, unguarded joy at someone eating her food and loving it, and I swear to myself right there that I’m going to bring this expression out of her every chance I get.
I’m in deep. I know it. Forty-eight hours of knowing this woman, and my body has already made the decision that we’re keeping her.
The scent match is a storm in my bloodstream, except it’s not just that.
It’s her innocence, the way she bites her lip when she concentrates, her strength to keep fighting when so many would have crumbled.
She finishes the coffee and carries two cups toward me. Our fingers brush on the handoff, and the contact fires through my arm and settles behind my ribs.
“You know, Claire.” I hold the cup, my attention on her. “I hope you’re not letting that shit Louis posted get to you.”
The laugh she gives is hollow. “Not at all. He can go fuck himself.” There’s fury in her voice, and pain underneath, plus the exhaustion of someone who’s been fighting the same battle for too long.
“I appreciate what you three did for me,” she says, quieter. “Standing up for me online. In front of all those people. You didn’t have to, but I loved that you did.”
“Yeah, the only way to deal with bullies.”
She searches my face. Whatever she’s looking for, I want her to find it.
She pulls off the apron, tosses it over a chair, and moves to the couch, where she places her cup on the side table.
I lose every scrap of composure because the T-shirt without the apron makes me breathless.
The curve of her breasts is visible through the fabric, the outline of her nipples sharp enough for my cock to punch in my pants.
She’s wearing no bra underneath. Fuck! I stare at the oven for a full second to get myself under control before I follow.
She sits cross-legged, facing me. I drop onto the couch, looking her way, one leg bent, my arm along the back. My gaze dips to her mouth. Lower. The stretch of the cotton T-shirt across her chest. Back to her eyes.
She caught every second of it. Her eyebrow lifts.
Real smooth, mate.
“So,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “New Zealand. What was it like?”
“Small town on the South Island. Arrowtown. Rugby, mountains, everyone in your business. Beautiful but suffocating.”
“Why’d you leave?”
Most people get the short version. But I want to share more with her.
“My brother, Eli.” I grab my cup. “Male Omega, which is rare. In a small town, rare means everyone judges.” I take a sip.
“He struggled badly. Presenting, school, all of it. Mum was fierce about protecting him. Dad…” I pause.
This part still sticks. “Dad’s decent. Not cruel.
Just didn’t know how to handle it, so he went quiet, which is worse than angry because at least angry is honest.”
“And what happened?” She says it flatly.
“I stepped in where Dad couldn’t,” I say, keeping my eyes on the cup between my hands.
“Walked Eli to school, shut people down before they bullied him, sat outside his bedroom door during his first heat because he was terrified and Dad couldn’t even bring himself to stay in the house.
Mum was at work, Eli was crying behind the door, and I was sitting on the hallway floor pretending I knew what the fuck I was doing. ”
“He was lucky to have you.”
I drag a hand over my jaw. “It was stressful. For him more than anyone, but for all of us. Then when I was twenty-three, Eli moved to Australia and told me I had officially done enough brothering and needed to get on with my own life already.” My mouth twitches despite the ache in my chest, because I love that kid more than he will ever understand, even if he’s a grown man now and still calls me twice a week to tell me things I absolutely do not need to know about his life.
“So I left New Zealand. Ended up in the States, found Brody and the pack, and Brody sponsored my visa so I could live and work here while my residency gets approved.”
“Oh, wow.”